Grooming For Dogs:Keeping Your Dog Well Groomed

Grooming for dogs is very essential for keeping your dog healthy, clean, preventing infection from matted hair, teeth related diseases due to lack of care, excessive wax in the ears which may result in ear infections.

Grooming your dogs at home is a task every dog owner has to master if you want to avoid a possible situation where your dog may develop a health problem as a result of little or no grooming for the dog.

One good thing for dog owners is that dogs do not generally need to be bath daily like humans but part of learning how to groom your dog at home is, knowing the frequency of grooming your dog requires and keeping on schedule. This usually depends on the breed of the dog and its hair type.

Dog grooming can be an unpleasant exercise both for the dog and dog owners who are new to dog grooming. For a beginner groomer, dog grooming can be quite demanding in terms of time and the effort required coupled with the challenges of having to get the dog to become comfortable with the process of grooming.

At the initial stages, grooming for dogs can be an unpleasant experience for most dogs and this can make grooming more difficult not to mention the rather painstaking process required to give a dog a proper grooming.

However just like dog training, getting your pooch to become comfortable with the process of dog grooming will also require some dog training approach. If your are experiencing a lot of difficulty getting your dog to cooperate with you when it comes to grooming then you should break the grooming session into multiple grooming sessions that will span a time period.

You have two options when it comes to grooming your dog, you can either seek the services of a professional groomer or you could learn the art of dog grooming and become that professional dog groomer that your dog needs.

Seeking out a professional dog groomer

You can get the services of a professional groomer at different business such as the groomers’ shop, at the vet, pet spas, boarding kennels and pet stores. The cost of dog grooming is determine by many variable such as the size of the dog, coat type, breeds etc.

While the cost of grooming for dogs will most likely play a significant role in deciding where you may want to have your dog groomed there are some other essential factor that you should aware of before making that final decision.

Before taking your dog to a groomers’ shop for grooming you should first and foremost seek the opinion of other professional like your vet or dog trainer or even friends and family, this way you reduce the risk of making a bad choice. The final step before making a decision, either you got a recommendation or not, will involve checking out the facility and make the following observations:

How clean is the environment?

Do they allow you to witness a grooming session? If they refuse, this should be viewed as a red flag.

Are you satisfied with the way the handling the dogs at the facility?

How friendly is the staff?

How do they treat the dogs before and after grooming?

How do you feel about the general ambiance of the facility?

Benefits of using the services of professional dog groomers

Here are some of the benefits of using the services of professional dog groomers for dog owners who do not wish to personally groom their dog:

The risk of injury to the dog is largely reduced if not eliminated. A professional dog groomer knows the ins and outs of dog grooming and can easily deliver excellent services little or no hurt to the dog.

They can easily provide the right hair cut and shaping that will give your dog that excellent look that you want.

Because of their vast experience in the job they can easily detect parasites and any strange occurrence such as rashes, skin cut or bleeding, lumps etc.

They can also provide help assistance such as recommending how to take care of your dog’s skin if it is either too oily or too dry.

Learning how to groom your dog yourself

Start by grooming the parts of the body that your dog will be more comfortable with like the paws and then progressively move on to other areas. Carry out these multiple grooming sessions over a specific time interval e.g. every 2 days; this close time intervals will make it easy for your dog to quickly adapt to grooming.

Also keep the more demanding parts of the body (e.g. coat grooming and bathing) for the last stages of the grooming sessions. There is nothing wrong in buying the cooperation of your pooch when it’s time for grooming by offering him treats while you carry out the grooming.

Dog grooming advice

It is advisable to groom your dog on schedule as this will makes it easy for you to predict how much you will have to do per grooming session and also your dog will quickly grow to become comfortable with grooming.

The hair length of your dog and sometimes the breed will be a major factor in deciding the frequency of grooming e.g. short coated dogs will be largely OK with a weekly coat grooming but long coated dogs will need daily coat grooming. Also breeds like the German shepherd are serious shedders so even a weekly grooming of a short haired German shepherd may be require more effort when compared to other breeds with short hairs.

For most dogs the slicker and the bristle dog grooming brush will be all you need to brush your dog’s coat. With the slicker dog grooming brush you will be able to take care of matted hairs and also be able to remove tangles after which you can then use the bristle brush; while grooming the coat of your dog be on the lookout for ticks, fleas etc.

How often you will need to bath your dog would be largely influenced by two variables: how often your dog gets her coat dirty and the weather condition in your location. You don’t want to bath your dog too often if you are residing in a cold region and even when the need arises you should always make use of lukewarm water.

Bath your dog occasionally

Use mild shampoo when bathing your dog and be careful not to direct a jet of water in his ears, nose or eyes. Ensure that you thoroughly rinse off the shampoo otherwise it will result in skin irritation for the dog.

You can always employ the use of a dryer set at very low heat to dry your dog after bathing; this way he does not have to keep shaking off the water all over the place in order to get dry.

Using a dryer is even more important when you are dealing with some breeds like the Maltese, Poodle or the English sheep dog; when using the dryer make sure that you direct the dryer at specific spots while brushing until the hair at that part of the dog’s body is dry. Simply repeat this process until the entire coat is dry.